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<title>Mini Pies by CunningfolkApothecary (LordAmulu)</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26370262">Mini Pies</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/LordAmulu/pseuds/CunningfolkApothecary'>CunningfolkApothecary (LordAmulu)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Check Please! (Webcomic)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 07:15:18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>836</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26370262</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/LordAmulu/pseuds/CunningfolkApothecary</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes the best way to cure homesickness is with a little bit of love from the kitchen. </p>
<p>And sometimes her desire to cure homesickness was borne out of a bet with the nutritionist and pure spite.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>27</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Mini Pies</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Watching her team get homesick is always one of the hardest parts of the new training season, especially with the new recruits. True, it does get easier as the guys get older, what with lives settling down and girlfriends becoming wives and shared apartments with teammates giving way to houses with small children. Still, for the younger members of the team, it’s hard. </p>
<p>She didn’t expect the most homesick one to be Jack. </p>
<p>Granted, he wasn’t very obvious about it, but it was her job to know her boys and by gods, she knew them pretty well, or so she liked to think. She liked to think she knew Jack pretty well- well enough to know that he’s a strange combination of homesick and pining. </p>
<p>Its… not unusual, but she’s never seen a pair of people go about the whole courting thing <b>this awkwardly</b>. </p>
<p>To his credit, he doesn’t bring it onto the ice, but between Jack’s homesick pining, the rest of the Rookies plain homesickness and masked whining, and the Old Hands’ not-so-subtle exchange of family photos, stories, and ‘<i> yeah it’s rough man</i>’s, well. It seemed like everyone really needed a pick me up. </p>
<p>Which is why she was in her kitchen at gods knows how early in the morning it was trying to get something to come out relatively well. It was cheat day, and George may have had a few words with the nutritionists (a bet, really, but honestly, Gustav was a man of little faith and she would prove she could make damn near anything he challenged her to). </p>
<p>She was expecting muffins, maybe, or some cookies. Cookies were, in her mind, the ultimate home food. Her sister used to make them whenever George came home for the holidays and well, they were sin incarnate. </p>
<p>No, Gustav had suggested mini pies. Who the hell makes tiny pies? With lattices! It was almost sadistic! Pastry crust alone was temperamental and to make two dozen small tiny pies? Well, she’d watched enough Great British Bake Off to know that was a difficult task. </p>
<p>Still, she wouldn’t back down. She’d make the goddamn mini-pies and cheer her boys up and win that bet with Gustav. Most importantly cheer the boys up, because the season was looking to be rough. Most certainly not to one-up Gustav. </p>
<p>Still, it was early in the morning and so far, all of her attempts have just sort of… oozed. Melted, really, but… well. </p>
<p>She sighed and finally began her last-minute act of desperation.</p>
<p>                      Search the Vlogs of the depths of the internet. </p>
<p>It was like the heavens had opened up, showering her with golden light from a benevolent goddess of baking who had bestowed her gift unto the world in the form of a small, sweet southern boy. </p>
<p>One she recognized, and gods, the next time she saw the boy she was going to buy him a bottle of wine and some fancy flour or a rolling pin or something because gods above, these pies looked amazing. It was like the divine hands of the patron saint of baking had come into her kitchen with a sweet lilting drawl and instructions and tips that made things easy and understandable and oh gods these mini-pies looked like perfection given a flaky, delicious form, save a few that had slightly singed edges, but overall they were beautiful and if the one she ‘<i>sampled</i>’ was anything to go by, they were amazing. One of the best things she’d eaten in.. well, a long time. </p>
<p>The next day after practice she revealed her hard work, half propped up with a mug of industrial-strength coffee that even the hockey team would balk at for being too strong, and half propped up with eager anticipation to see what the team (and Gustav) would think. </p>
<p>It was well worth the effort, after watching the over-exuberance of the team declaring undying affection for all things pie. Even more so when she saw Jack, and the way his entire being relaxed into something that resembled the man she had seen at Samwell. Contentment that sat on his shoulders like a pleased cat rather than the cloak of iron that he seemed to have been carrying (like he was worried at any moment all of this would be snatched away from him). It was like seeing Jack return home for the time it took him to polish off three of those small pies, and that contentment seemed to linger for the rest of the week. Even the team as a whole seemed to play better. Much better. Much. </p>
<p>You know, maybe she’d buy Bittle a few bottles of wine. And a Rolling Pin. a bunch of cooking things. Or maybe she’d just buy Jack these things and, you know, subtly suggest the sweet southern gift from the baking gods come around More often, because staying up to the wee hours of the morning baking pies, while fun the first time (sorta), was not something she had the endurance for.</p>
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